Sun, Sea and Samba at Lanzarote Music Marathon Festival

On the 27th February 2014, 5 of us (including Lanzarote Lovers Keith Haining and Christine McShane) set off from Prestwick to the Sun to compete in Saturday’s Music Marathon Festival. This was mainly due to Keith going from a shade of brown to a light tan colour during the winter months.

When we arrived on the Island of Lanzarote that evening the temperature was warm but just cold enough that you needed a thin sweater (Boo Hoo). The next couple of days of acclimatising prove though that we would have to carbo load by consuming high proportions of beer.

Saturday and the first day of March came and perhaps it was just the nerves but it felt like the warmest day so far. Previous days had suggested that a 5pm start would have been preferred to this 4pm one but as that wasn’t an option, we went with the flow.

The two main points to point out about the Music Marathon Festival is that firstly, initially there was very little music and secondly there was no Marathon. The 3 adult races were the 1/8 marathon, ¼ marathon (ran by Christine) and the ½ marathon (ran by Keith and I). The route was P shaped with the course going up the P shape until you turned right onto the curve, coming out at an outside gym then down the straight of the P and then when you turned back at the bottom you repeated this out and in course for a further 3 loops (or 1 more loop for the quarter marathon).

On the out course you were confronted with a hill and an outgoing wind and on the way back the heat was stifling (I’m getting my excuses ready here). There was 8 drink stops which was a Russian roulette between Water, Isotonic Drink or warm Cola (boak). I missed the 1st stop (naively) but took my chance with the fluids for the next 7.

On the return I could see a group in front of Keith, Some of these were ¼ marathon runners and others, Keith’s rivals. Christine wasn’t too far behind me and looked in good running form. All the music had now kicked up and we heard the sounds of Ska, Reggae , Samba and Avicii. More importantly, Keith looked to only have 4 runners left in front of him and the people around me were mainly finished at the ¼ marathon point. Christine was to be seen for the last time in the course, clocking in at 1:12 and looking appropriately pleased with herself.

Moving into the end of the race, it seemed that Keith was now sitting 4th and seemed to be looking comfortable. He had built up enough tan to feel comfortable in his surroundings. However the results were to read his position at a debatable 5th place, clocking in at 1:18:31 and taking the V45-49 prize. More than several minutes later, I came in at my predicted time of just below 85 minutes (1:24:50) and 13th of just over 130. As with Keith and Christine, none of our training was as good as we wanted so we were overall pleased at our times in these challenging conditions (the excuses have officially arrived). We were waiting for Keith’s presentation and I, surprisingly heard my name being called for 1st V40-44 category. Both myself and Keith had literally won a watch.

The rest of the holiday was spent by further essential fluid intake, Keith and Christine topping up their tan to an acceptable level and myself topping it up to an almost light magenta colour which would make any computer geek look proud.